Milpitas, Calif.— SanDisk unveiled the industry’s highest capacity flash-memory MP3 player, which incorporates 8GB of embedded memory and features a microSD expansion slot to add up to another 2GB of storage capacity.
The Sansa e280, which features video playback and photo viewer, will retail for a suggested $249.99 when it ships Sept. 8, when it will join an e200 series whose 2GB, 4GB, and 6GB models were repriced downward on Aug. 21 by a respective $40, $50, and $60 to suggested retails of $139, $179, and $219, respectively. Until now, the only 6GB flash-memory players available in the U.S. were from San Disk and Thomson, whose models retail for $169.
The Sansa e200 is 0.5 by 1.7 by 3.5 inches with 1.8-inch TFT color screen. It’s Microsoft PlaysForSure-certified and features FM tuner, FM recording, voice recording, a user-replaceable lithium ion battery with up to 20 hours of music-playback capability, metal-alloy casing, and included Sansa Media Converter software to transcode videos.
SanDisk got the price down, said Eric Bone, director of AV product marketing, because SanDisk makes its own flash memory.
